


between two lungs

by openended



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, Memories, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>memories are fractured now, bits of light through the indoctrination</p>
            </blockquote>





	between two lungs

She hears the words and knows it’s her voice speaking (she’d be going completely mad if she couldn’t recognize her own voice), but she doesn’t will her lips to move, doesn’t remember forming the words. The words fall on their own, and if she thinks about it - she even sees herself on the other side of the room. She wonders when she was duplicated.

She wonders why it feels like she’s under water and can’t move.

_Liara is seven and digging up the front yard; focused and determined already, she’s convinced there’s a Prothean relic under their house on Thessia._

_(there isn’t, but she’s not ready to dash her daughter’s hopes; at least, not until dinner)_

_Benezia watches from the window as Liara happily digs in the dirt, brow creased in concentration even as it starts to rain. She wonders if she can catch a picture before the rain turns into a storm and the dirt turns into mud and Liara comes running inside with her nose scrunched up at the mess. Aethyta’s been gone six years now, but she tries to send a picture every few months, even if she doesn’t get a response._

It all seems to make sense. If she doesn’t look at herself too closely from the opposite side of the room, nothing seems to be particularly out of place.

The trouble comes when she looks too closely. The Benezia-shaped figure stepping off the Rift Station platform doesn’t fit quite right. She’s too stiff around the edges and doesn’t blink enough. Nothing makes sense, not even a bizarre sort of sense, and she knows it.

The Benezia-shaped figure knows it too. Her skull itches.

_Liara graduates university with more degrees and honors than Benezia thought possible to earn at once. She waits to the side while Liara finishes a quick chat with a professor, finalizing details of her excavation trip. Liara’s hardly been off Thessia unless accompanying her mother, and Benezia feels the subtle twitch in Liara’s movements, ready to jump and see the galaxy outside of asari space, even if it’s underground on an unheard of and barely-mapped world._

_Benezia sees a familiar flash of blue, a well-remembered saunter, and looks away from her daughter, searching the crowd for the crest she can still feel under her fingertips. She doesn’t find who she’s looking for, and when Liara touches her elbow, she’s pulled back to the present._

_They link arms and make their way towards celebratory dinner. Though she wants to, Benezia doesn’t look behind over her shoulder. She’s unsure how she’d feel about Aethyta standing there or not; it’s safer simply not to know._

She screams at herself, pounds against the glass. Everything about this is wrong, this isn’t you, please stop - Liara’s there.

Her words fall unheard, and the commandos attack. She slumps to the ground, can’t watch.

_Liara’s convinced she’s left something important behind, but Benezia assures her she’ll send it on if she finds it and then pointedly looks at the time. She’s traveling by herself now, doesn’t have the luxury of a matriarch to make the shuttle wait an extra five minutes for one last sweep of her bedroom for anything left behind._

_Suddenly there isn’t enough time in the universe, so many things she’s forgotten to tell Liara. She holds her daughter tightly at the spaceport, as long as she dares before Liara needs to board. Benezia whispers that she loves her and reminds her about the existence of communications relays and that she should use them once in a while._

_The shuttle takes off exactly one minute after it was scheduled. The air shimmers from the heat of the engines and then Benezia is alone._

She fights through the thick haze, and the Benezia-shaped figure feels right again; she realizes a bit too late that she doesn’t see herself anymore - she’s back inside her own body. It’s warm and comfortable, familiar, and she nearly cries in relief when Liara’s eyes light up in recognition.

She doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to drift into the dark, but something tugs at her and she’s so very tired. And Liara is safe, those little wings have grown up and strong.

That’s all that matters. She closes her eyes and allows herself to fall away.


End file.
